The Difference

One question I get asked a lot is, "what's the difference between an Osteopath and a Physiotherapist or a Chiropractor?"I find this quite hard to answer.I know what I do. But my knowledge of other professions is mostly second hand. Anecdotes from patients and bits and pieces I've read.It is also hard for me to be objective because I'm a committed Osteopath. I believe Osteopathy is the best therapy for chronic pain.Osteopathy is the only approach I know of that gets to grips with the individual nature of back pain and similar conditions.What we do is find hidden patterns in peoples problems that lead to solutions.

A quick example:

Linda came to me last month suffering from coccyx pain. Sharp discomfort at the very end of her tail bone making sitting unbearable. This started for no apparent reason and had persisted for about a month.

Medically the pain was a mystery. There had been no trauma to the area. And tests showed there was no disease in the bone or pelvic organs. There was no reason for Linda's coccyx to be painful.

But as an Osteopath, I could see an explanation for Linda's symptoms. She mentioned that before the pain started, she underwent several pelvic operations.

The positioning and strain exerted during these procedures had caused her pelvic joints to lock. This meant that tail bone was stuck in one position. This put it under pressure when Linda was sitting. There was nothing wrong with the coccyx itself

Treatment to release the locked pelvic joints, allowed the tail bone to move into the correct position during sitting. And this took away the pain.